Activist to Mexican Senate: Don't Approve TPP The News
go to original October 29, 2012

MEXICO CITY – Richard Stallman, the founder of the free software movement, recommended the Mexican Senate last week to reject the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) just as it condemned the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in July.

The Senate will debate the TPP, which Mexico was invited to join last June, over the next few days. Critics of the TPP have compared it to ACTA and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

Organizations as wide-ranging as Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, the Sierra Club, and Doctors without Borders have said the agreement reduces civil liberties, provides international corporations extra-judiciary privileges and endangers the health and livelihoods of private citizens by reducing access to life-saving medicines, extending drug patents and enshrining rights for corporations while reducing the power of nation’s governments to control them.

In addition to these critiques, TPP agreement negotiations have been held in complete secrecy with no access to proposals by civil organizations or the public. ACTA, an agreement more specifically dealing with intellectual property rights, has yet to be ratified in Congress, but its signing has been condemned by both houses in two separate resolutions.

Stallman met with Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) Senator Mario Delgado yesterday, and recommended that Mexico reject the TPP. The American programmer referenced the Mexican government’s use of free software to achieve computing sovereignty without relying on the patents of programs such as Windows as an example of their commitment to freedom of information.

Delgado expressed his commitment to promoting the use of free software in governmental sectors and in the field of education. The PRD legislator said that he understood the importance of free software in government, as he served as Mexico City’s Public Security Secretariats’ (SSPE) information technology director.

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